The Quest of the Sacred Slipper
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Sax Rohmer >> The Quest of the Sacred Slipper
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"Ahmad Ahmadeen!"
"Yes! He travelled home as Ahmadeen--the only time he ever used
a disguise. Oh! the thing is accursed!" she cried. "I begged him,
implored him, to abandon his attempts upon it. Day and night we
were watched by those ghastly yellow men! But it was all in vain.
He knew, had known for a long time, where Hassan of Aleppo was in
hiding!"
And I reflected that the best men at New Scotland Yard had failed
to pick up the slightest clue!
"The Hashishin, of whom that dreadful man is leader, are rich, or
have supporters who are rich. The plan was to make them pay for
the slipper."
"My God! it was playing with fire!"
She sat silent awhile. Emotion threatened to get the upper hand.
Then--
"Two days ago," she almost whispered, "he set out--to . . . get the
slipper!"
"To steal it?"
"To steal it!"
"From Hassan of Aleppo?"
I could scarcely believe that any man, single-handed, could have
had the hardihood to attempt such a thing.
"From Hassan, yes!"
I faced her, amazed, incredulous.
"Dexter had suffered mutilation, he knew that the Hashishin sought
his life for his previous attempts upon the relic of the Prophet,
and yet he dared to venture again into the very lions' den?"
"He did, Mr. Cavanagh, two days ago. And--"
"Yes?" I urged, as gently as I could, for she was shaking pitifully.
"He never came back!"
The words were spoken almost in a whisper. She clenched her hands
and leapt from the chair, fighting down her grief and with such a
stark horror in her beautiful eyes that from my very soul I longed
to be able to help her.
"Mr. Cavanagh" (she had courage, this bewildering accomplice of a
cracksman), "I know the house he went to! I cannot hope to make you
understand what I have suffered since then. A thousand times I have
been on the point of going to the police, confessing all I knew, and
leading them to that house! O God! if only he is alive, this shall
be his last crooked deal--and mine! I dared not go to the police,
for his sake! I waited, and watched, and hoped, through two such
nights and days . . . then I ventured. I should have gone mad if I
had not come here. I knew you had good cause to hate, to detest me,
but I remembered that you had a great grievance against Hassan. Not
as great, O heaven! not as great as mine, but yet a great one. I
remembered, too, that you were the kind of man--a woman can come
to . . . "
She sank back into the chair, and with her fingers twining and
untwining, sat looking dully before her.
"In brief," I said, "what do you propose?"
"I propose that we endeavour to obtain admittance to the house of
Hassan of Aleppo--secretly, of course, and all I ask of you in
return for revealing the secret of its situation is--"
"That I let Dexter go free?"
Almost inaudibly she whispered: "If he lives!"
Surely no stranger proposition ever had been submitted to a
law-abiding citizen. I was asked to connive in the escape of a
notorious criminal, and at one and the same time to embark upon an
expedition patently burglarious! As though this were not enough,
I was invited to beard Hassan of Aleppo, the most dreadful being I
had ever encountered East or West, in his mysterious stronghold!
I wondered what my friend, Inspector Bristol, would have thought of
the project; I wondered if I should ever live to see Hassan meet his
just deserts as a result of this enterprise, which I was forced to
admit a foolhardy one. But a man who has selected the career of a
war correspondent from amongst those which Fleet Street offers, is
the victim of a certain craving for fresh experiences; I suppose,
has in his character something of an adventurous turn.
For a while I stood staring from the window, then faced about and
looked into the violet eyes of my visitor.
"I agree, Carneta!" I said.
CHAPTER XXIX
WE MEET MR. ISAACS
Quitting the wayside station, and walking down a short lane, we came
out upon Watling Street, white and dusty beneath the afternoon sun.
We were less than an hour's train journey from London but found
ourselves amid the Kentish hop gardens, amid a rural peace unbroken.
My companion carried a camera case slung across her shoulder, but
its contents were less innocent than one might have supposed. In
fact, it contained a neat set of those instruments of the burglar's
art with whose use she appeared to be quite familiar.
"There is an inn," she said, "about a mile ahead, where we can
obtain some vital information. He last wrote to me from there."
Side by side we tramped along the dusty road. We both were silent,
occupied with our own thoughts. Respecting the nature of my
companion's I could entertain little doubt, and my own turned upon
the foolhardy nature of the undertaking upon which I was embarked.
No other word passed between us then, until upon rounding a bend
and passing a cluster of picturesque cottages, the yard of the
Vinepole came into view.
"Do they know you by sight here?" I asked abruptly.
"No, of course not; we never made strategic mistakes of that kind.
If we have tea here, no doubt we can learn all we require."
I entered the little parlour of the inn, and suggested that tea
should be served in the pretty garden which opened out of it upon
the right.
The host, who himself laid the table, viewed the camera case
critically.
"We get a lot of photographers down here," he remarked tentatively.
"No doubt," said my companion. "There is some very pretty scenery
in the neighbourhood."
The landlord rested his hands upon the table.
"There was a gentleman here on Wednesday last," he said; "an old
gentleman who had met with an accident, and was staying somewhere
hereabouts for his health. But he'd got his camera with him, and
it was wonderful the way he could use it, considering he hadn't got
the use of his right hand."
"He must have been a very keen photographer," I said, glancing at
the girl beside me.
"He took three or four pictures of the Vinepole," replied the
landlord (which I doubted, since probably his camera was a dummy);
"and he wanted to know if there were any other old houses in the
neighbourhood. I told him he ought to take Cadham Hall, and he said
he had heard that the Gate House, which is about a mile from here,
was one of the oldest buildings about."
A girl appeared with a tea tray, and for a moment I almost feared
that the landlord was about to retire; but he lingered, whilst the
girl distributed the things about the table, and Carneta asked
casually, "Would there be time for me to photograph the Gate House
before dark?"
"There might be time," was the reply, "but that's not the difficulty.
Mr. Isaacs is the difficulty."
"Who is Mr. Isaacs?" I asked.
"He's the Jewish gentleman who bought the Gate House recently. Lots
of money he's got and a big motor car. He's up and down to London
almost every day in the week, but he won't let anybody take
photographs of the house. I know several who've asked."
"But I thought," said Carneta, innocently, "you said the old
gentleman who was here on Wednesday went to take some?"
"He went, yes, miss; but I don't know if he succeeded."
Carneta poured out some tea.
"Now that you speak of it," she said, "I too have heard that the
Gate House is very picturesque. What objection can Mr. Isaacs
have to photographers?"
"Well, you see, miss, to get a picture of the house, you have to
pass right through the grounds."
"I should walk right up to the house and ask permission. Is Mr.
Isaacs at home, I wonder?"
"I couldn't say. He hasn't passed this way to-day."
"We might meet him on the way," said I. "What is he like?"
"A Jewish gentleman sir, very dark, with a white beard. Wears
gold glasses. Keeps himself very much to himself. I don't know
anything about his household; none of them ever come here."
Carneta inquired the direction of Cadham Hall and of the Gate House,
and the landlord left us to ourselves. My companion exhibited
signs of growing agitation, and it seemed to me that she had much
ado to restrain herself from setting out without a moment's delay
for the Gate House, which, I readily perceived, was the place to
which our strange venture was leading us.
I found something very stimulating in the reflection that, rash
though the expedition might be, and, viewed from whatever standpoint,
undeniably perilous, it promised to bring me to that secret
stronghold of deviltry where the sinister Hassan of Aleppo so
successfully had concealed himself.
The work of the modern journalist had many points of contact with
that of the detective; and since the murder of Professor Deeping I
had succumbed to the man-hunting fever more than once. I knew that
Scotland Yard had failed to locate the hiding-place of the
remarkable and evil man who, like an efreet of Oriental lore, obeyed
the talisman of the stolen slipper, striking down whomsoever laid
hand upon its sacredness. It was a novel sensation to know that,
aided by this beautiful accomplice of a rogue, I had succeeded where
the experts had failed!
Misgivings I had and shall not deny. If our scheme succeeded it
would mean that Deeping's murderer should be brought to justice.
If it failed-well, frankly, upon that possibility I did not dare to
reflect!
It must be needless for me to say that we two strangely met allies
were ill at ease, sometimes to the point of embarrassment. We
proceeded on our way in almost unbroken silence, and, save for a
couple of farm hands, without meeting any wayfarer, up to the time
that we reached the brow of the hill and had our first sight of the
Gate House lying in a little valley beneath. It was a small Tudor
mansion, very compact in plan and its roof glowed redly in the
rays of the now setting sun.
From the directions given by the host of the Vinepole it was
impossible to mistake the way or to mistake the house. Amid
well-wooded grounds it stood, a place quite isolated, but so
typically English that, as I stood looking down upon it, I found
myself unable to believe that any other than a substantial country
gentleman could be its proprietor.
I glanced at Carneta. Her violet eyes were burning feverishly, but
her lips twitched in a bravely pitiful way.
Clearly now my adventure lay before me; that red-roofed homestead
seemed to have rendered it all substantial which hitherto had been
shadowy; and I stood there studying the Gate House gravely, for it
might yet swallow me up, as apparently it had swallowed Earl Dexter.
There, amid that peaceful Kentish landscape, fantasy danced and
horrors unknown lurked in waiting. . .
The eminence upon which we were commanded an extensive prospect,
and eastward showed a tower and flagstaff which marked the site of
Cadham Hall. There were homeward-bound labourers to be seen in the
lanes now, and where like a white ribbon the Watling Street lay
across the verdant carpet moved an insect shape, speedily.
It was a car, and I watched it with vague interest. At a point
where a dense coppice spread down to the roadway and a lane crossed
west to east, the car became invisible. Then I saw it again, nearer
to us and nearer to the Gate House. Finally it disappeared among
the trees.
I turned to Carneta. She, too, had been watching. Now her gaze met
mine.
"Mr. Isaacs!" she said; and her voice was less musical than usual.
"His chauffeur, who learned his business in Cairo, is probably the
only one of his servants who remains in England."
"What!" I began--and said no more.
Where the road upon which we stood wound down into the valley and
lost itself amid the trees surrounding the Gate House, the car
suddenly appeared again, and began to mount the slope toward us!
"Heavens!" whispered Carneta. "He may have seen us--with glasses!
Quick! Let us walk back until the hill-top conceals us; then we
must hide somewhere!"
I shared her excitement. Without a moment's hesitation we both
turned and retraced our steps. Twenty paces brought us to a
spot where a stack of mangel wurzels stood at the roadside.
"This will do!" I said.
We ran around into the field, and crouched where we could peer out
on the road without ourselves being seen. Nor had we taken up this
position a moment too soon.
Topping the slope came a light-weight electric, driven by a man who,
in his spruce uniform, might have passed at a glance for a very
dusky European. The car had a limousine back, and as the chauffeur
slowed down, out from the open windows right and left peered the
solitary occupant.
He had the cast of countenance which is associated with the best
type of Jew, with clear-cut aquiline features wholly destitute of
grossness. His white beard was patriarchal and he wore gold-rimmed
pince-nez and a glossy silk hat. Such figures may often be met
with in the great money-markets of the world, and Mr. Isaacs would
have passed for a successful financier in even more discerning
communities than that of Cadham.
But I scarcely breathed until the car was past; and, beside me, my
companion, crouching to the ground, was trembling wildly. Fifty
yards toward the village Mr. Isaacs evidently directed the man to
return.
The car was put about, and flashed past us at high speed down into
the valley. When the sound of the humming motor had died to
something no louder than the buzz of a sleepy wasp, I held out my
hand to Carneta and she rose, pale, but with blazing eyes, and
picked up her camera case.
"If he had detected us, everything would have been lost!" she
whispered.
"Not everything!" I replied grimly--and showed her the revolver
which I had held in my hand whilst those eagle eyes had been
seeking us. "If he had made a sign to show that he had seen us, in
fact, if he had once offered a safe mark by leaning from the car, I
should have shot him dead without hesitation!"
"We must not show ourselves again, but wait for dusk. He must have
seen us, then, on the hilltop, but I hope without recognizing us.
He has the sight and instincts of a vulture!"
I nodded, slipping the revolver into my pocket, but I wondered if I
should not have been better advised to have risked a shot at the
moment that I had recognized "Mr. Isaacs" for Hassan of Aleppo.
CHAPTER XXX
AT THE GATE HOUSE
From sunset to dusk I lurked about the neighbourhood of the Gate
House with my beautiful accomplice--watching and waiting: a man
bound upon stranger business, I dare swear, than any other in the
county of Kent that night.
Our endeavour now was to avoid observation by any one, and in this,
I think, we succeeded. At the same time, Carneta, upon whose
experience I relied implicitly, regarded it as most important that
we should observe (from a safe distance) any one who entered or
quitted the gates.
But none entered, and none came out. When, finally, we made along
the narrow footpath skirting the west of the grounds, the night was
silent--most strangely still.
The trees met overhead, but no rustle disturbed their leaves and of
animal life no indication showed itself. There was no moon.
A full appreciation of my mad folly came to me, and with it a sense
of heavy depression. This stillness that ruled all about the house
which sheltered the awful Sheikh of the Assassins was ominous, I
thought. In short, my nerves were playing me tricks.
"We have little to fear," said my companion, speaking in a hushed
and quivering voice. "The whole of the party left England some
days ago."
"Are you sure?"
"Certain! We learned that before Earl made his attempt. Hassan
remains, for some reason; Hassan and one other--the one who drives
the car."
"But the slipper?"
"If Hassan remains, so does the slipper!" From the knapsack, which,
as you will have divined, did not contain a camera, she took out an
electric pocket lamp, and directed its beam upon the hedge above us.
"There is a gap somewhere here!" she said. "See if you can find it.
I dare not show the light too long."
Darkness followed. I clambered up the bank and sought for the
opening of which Carneta had spoken.
"The light here a moment," I whispered. "I think I have it!"
Out shone the white beam, and momentarily fell upon a black hole in
the thickset hedge. The light disappeared, and as I extended my
hand to Carneta she grasped it and climbed up beside me.
"Put on your rubber shoes," she directed. "Leave the others here."
There in the darkness I did as she directed, for I was provided with
a pair of tennis shoes. Carneta already was suitably shod.
"I will go first," I said. "What is the ground like beyond?"
"Just unkempt bushes and weeds."
Upon hands and knees I crawled through, saw dimly that there was a
short descent, corresponding with the ascent from the lane, and
turned, whispering to my fellow conspirator to follow.
The grounds proved even more extensive than I had anticipated. We
pressed on, dodging low-sweeping branches and keeping our arms up to
guard our faces from outshoots of thorn bushes. Our progress
necessarily was slow, but even so quite a long time seemed to have
elapsed ere we came in sight of the house.
This was my first expedition of the kind; and now that my goal was
actually in sight I became conscious of a sort of exultation hard
to describe. My companion, on the contrary, seemed to have become
icily cool. When next she spoke, her voice had a businesslike ring,
which revealed the fact that she was no amateur at this class og
work.
"Wait here," she directed. "I am going to pass all around the
house, and I will rejoin you."
I could see her but dimly, and she moved off as silent as an Indian
deer-stalker, leaving me alone there crouching at the extreme edge
of the thicket. I looked out over a small wilderness of unkempt
flower-beds; so much it was just possible to perceive. The plants
in many instances had spread on to the pathways and contested
survival with the flourishing weeds. All was wild--deserted--eerie.
A sense of dampness assailed me, and I raised my eyes to the
low-lying building wherein no light showed, no sign of life was
evident. The nearer wing presented a verandah apparently overgrown
by some climbing plant, the nature of which it was impossible to
determine in the darkness.
The zest for the nocturnal operation which temporarily had thrilled
me succumbed now to loneliness. With keen anxiety I awaited the
return of my more experienced accomplice. The situation was
grotesque, utterly bizarre; but even my sense of humour could not
save me from the growing dread which this seemingly deserted place
poured into my heart.
When upon the right I heard a faint rustling I started, and grasped
the revolver in my pocket.
"Not a sound!" came in Carneta's voice. "Keep just inside the
bushes and come this way. There is something I want to show you."
The various profuse growths rendered concealment simple enough--if
indeed any other concealment were necessary than that which the
strangely black night afforded. Just within the evil-smelling
thicket we made a half circuit of the building, and stopped.
"Look!" whispered Carneta.
The word was unnecessary, for I was staring fixedly in the direction
of that which evidently had occasioned her uneasiness.
It was a small square window, so low-set that I assumed it to be
that of a cellar, and heavily cross-barred.
From it, out upon a tangled patch of vegetation, shone a dull red
light!
"There's no other light in the place," my companion whispered.
"For God's sake, what can it be?"
My mind supplied no explanation. The idea that it might be a dark
room no doubt was suggested by the assumed role of Carneta; but I
knew that idea to be absurd. The red light meant something else.
Evidently the commencing of operations before all lights were out
was irregular, for Carneta said slowly--
"We must wait and watch the light. There was formerly a moat
around the Gate House; that must be the window of a dungeon."
I little relished the prospect of waiting in that swamp-like spot,
but since no alternative presented itself I accepted the inevitable.
For close upon an hour we stood watching the red window. No sound
of bird, beast, or man disturbed our vigil; in fact, it would
appear that the very insects shunned the neighbourhood of Hassan of
Aleppo. But the red light still shone out.
"We must risk it!" said Carneta steadily. "There are French windows
opening on to that verandah. Ten yards farther around the bushes
come right up to the wall of the house. We'll go that way and
around by the other wing on to the verandah."
Any action was preferable to this nerve-sapping delay, and with a
determination to shoot, and shoot to kill, any one who opposed
our entrance, I passed through the bushes and, with Carneta, rounded
the southern border of that silent house and slipped quietly on to
the verandah.
Kneeling, Carneta opened the knapsack. My eyes were growing
accustomed to the darkness, and I was just able to see her deft
hands at work upon the fastenings. She made no noise, and I
watched her with an ever-growing wonder. A female burglar is a
personage difficult to imagine. Certainly, no one ever could have
suspected this girl with the violet eyes of being an expert
crackswoman; but of her efficiency there could be no question. I
think I had never witnessed a more amazing spectacle than that of
this cultured girl manipulating the tools of the house breaker with
her slim white fingers.
Suddenly she turned and clutched my arm.
"The windows are not fastened!" she whispered.
A strange courage came to me--perhaps that of desperation. For,
ignoring the ominous circumstance, I pushed open the nearest
window and stepped into the room beyond! A hissing breath from
Carneta acknowledged my performance, and she entered close behind
me, silent in her rubber-soled shoes.
For one thrilling moment we stood listening. Then came the white
beam from the electric lamp to cut through the surrounding blackness.
The room was totally unfurnished!
CHAPTER XXXI
THE POOL OF DEATH
Not a sound broke the stillness of the Gate House. It was the most
eerily silent place in which I had ever found myself. Out into the
corridor we went, noiselessly. It was stripped, uncarpeted.
Three doors we passed, two upon the left and one upon the right.
We tried them all. All were unfastened, and the rooms into which
they opened bare and deserted. Then we came upon a short, descending
stair, at its foot a massive oaken door.
Carneta glided down, noiseless as a ghost, and to one of the
blackened panels applied an ingenious little instrument which she
carried in her knapsack. It was not unlike a stethoscope; and as I
watched her listening, by means of this arrangement, for any sound
beyond the oaken door, I reflected how almost every advance made by
science places a new tool in the hand of the criminal.
No word had been spoken since we had discovered this door; none had
been necessary. For we both knew that the place beyond was that
from which proceeded the mysterious red light.
I directed the ray of the electric torch upon Carneta, as she stood
there listening, and against that sombre oaken background her face
and profile stood out with startling beauty. She seemed half
perplexed and half fearful. Then she abruptly removed the apparatus,
and, stooping to the knapsack, replaced it and took out a bunch of
wire keys, signing to me to hand her the lamp.
As I crept down the steps I saw her pause, glancing back over her
shoulder toward the door. The expression upon her face induced
me to direct the light in the same direction.
Why neither of us had observed the fact before I cannot conjecture;
but a key was in the lock!
Perhaps the traffic of the night afforded no more dramatic moment
than this. The house which we were come prepared burglariously
to enter was thrown open, it would seem, to us, inviting our
inspection!
Looking back upon that moment, it seems almost incredible that the
sight of a key in a lock should have so thrilled me. But at the
time I perceived something sinister in this failure of the Lord of
the Hashishin to close his doors to intruders. That Carneta shared
my doubts and fears was to be read in her face; but her training
had been peculiar, I learned, and such as establishes a surprising
resoluteness of character.
Quite noiselessly she turned the key, and holding a dainty pocket
revolver in her hand, pushed the door open slowly!
An odour, sickly sweet and vaguely familiar, was borne to my
nostrils. Carneta became outlined in dim, reddish light. Bending
forward slightly, she entered the room, and I, with muscles tensed
nervously, advanced and stood beside her.
I perceived that this was a cellar; indeed, I doubt not that in
some past age it had served as a dungeon. From the stone roof hung
the first evidence of Eastern occupation which the Gate House had
yielded; in the form of an Oriental lantern, or fanoos, of
rose-coloured waxed paper upon a copper frame. Its vague light
revealed the interior of the hideous place upon whose threshold we
stood.
Straight before us, deep set in the stone wall, was the tiny square
window, iron-barred without, and glazed with red glass, the light
from which had so deeply mystified us. Within a niche in the wall,
a little to the left of the window, rested an object which, at that
moment, claimed our undivided attention the sight of which so
wrought upon us that temporarily all else was forgotten.
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